I'm not good at finding 'encouraging' features in American culture. I doubt that aesthetic literacy has much of a future here.
Interpretation
The quote reflects skepticism about the positive aspects of American culture and questions the future of aesthetic appreciation.
In this quote, Philip Roth expresses his disillusionment with American culture, suggesting that he struggles to identify any uplifting qualities within it. His statement about aesthetic literacy points to a broader concern regarding the value placed on art and beauty in society, implying that such appreciation may diminish over time in America.
In practice
This quote can be used during a discussion on the state of modern art in America.
American society [...] not only sanctions gross and unfair relations among men, but it encourages them. Now, can that be denied? No. Rivalry, competition, envy, jealousy, all that is malignant in human character is nourished by the system. Possession, money, property--on such corrupt standards as these do you people measure happiness and success.
I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.
Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself
When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it.
It isn't that you subordinate your ideas to the force of the facts in autobiography but that you construct a sequence of stories to bind up the facts with a persuasive hypothesis that unravels your history's meaning.
That's what you're looking for as a writer when you're working. You're looking for your own freedom. To lose your inhibition to delve deep into your memory and experiences and life and then to find the prose that will persuade the reader.
Work is valued by the social value of the worker.
He is dead in this world who has no belief in another.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams.
God does not know whether a skin is black or white, He sees only souls.
The club that kills can drive a stake into the ground to hold a shelter. The hands that build bombs can be used to build schools. The minds that coordinate the activities of violence can coordinate the activities of cooperation. When the activities of life are infused with reverence, they come alive with meaning and purpose.
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